The NYC HPD Affidavit in Lieu of Registration Statement, formally called the Affidavit of Ownership, is a one-page sworn form that owner-occupants of one- or two-family homes, condominium unit owners, and cooperative shareholders file with the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to document that they are exempt from the annual property registration requirement. Once HPD processes it, you’re notified that registration is not required, and you’re out of the yearly cycle and its $13 fee.1NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property
The form is short. The care goes into making sure you actually qualify, that your property is identified correctly, and that it’s signed in front of a notary.
Who Can File This Affidavit
NYC law requires the owner of a residential building to register with HPD if the property is a multiple dwelling (three or more units) or a private dwelling (one or two units) where neither the owner nor a family member lives. The affidavit is for owners who fall outside that mandate. Three categories appear on the form, and you check the one that fits.
- You own a one- or two-family home and you or a family member lives there. Under the Housing Maintenance Code, “family member” means a spouse, domestic partner, parent, parent-in-law, child, sibling, sibling-in-law, grandparent, or grandchild.
- You own an individual condominium unit. The condo board registers the building; individual unit owners don’t register their units.
- You own shares in a cooperative. The co-op board handles the building registration, so individual shareholders are exempt.
The owner-occupied category is where people trip up. If you own a one- or two-family house but nobody in your family actually lives there, for example if you rent the whole property out, you do not qualify. You must register with HPD like any other landlord.1NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property The affidavit is only for owners who can truthfully swear that they or a qualifying family member reside at the dwelling.2NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Affidavit of Ownership
One boundary worth flagging. If you sit on a condo or co-op board, this affidavit is not what the building needs. The board files a standard Property Registration Statement through HPD’s online system for the building as a whole.1NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property
How To Fill Out the Form
Download the Affidavit of Ownership as a PDF from HPD’s website.2NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Affidavit of Ownership You can also request a paper copy by mail from HPD’s Property Registration Unit. The form has three parts that need attention.
Borough, Block, and Lot
The top of the form asks for your BBL, the city’s parcel identifier, along with the full street address and zip code. Get the BBL right, because HPD uses it to match your affidavit to the correct property; a wrong number can mean the filing goes nowhere. If you don’t know it, look it up through the Department of Finance’s NYC Property portal or the city’s Geographic Information System by address.3NYC311. Borough-Block-Lot (BBL) Lookup
The Exemption Category
Check only the box that applies. For an owner-occupied private dwelling, write in the property address. For a condo or co-op, include the building address and your apartment number.2NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Affidavit of Ownership
Signature Under Penalty of Perjury
Print your full legal name at the top, then sign and date at the bottom. Your signature affirms that everything on the form is true under penalty of perjury, so read it back once before signing. Don’t sign yet, though. The signature has to happen in front of a notary.
Getting It Notarized
HPD will not accept the affidavit without a valid notary stamp and signature in the designated section at the bottom.2NYC Housing Preservation and Development. Affidavit of Ownership The notary verifies your ID, watches you sign, and then stamps and signs the form.
Notaries are available at banks, UPS stores, law offices, and many real estate offices. Confirm the notary’s commission is current before you go. An expired commission invalidates the document and you’ll be starting over.
Where To Send It
Mail the completed, notarized original to HPD’s Property Registration Unit:
Department of Housing Preservation and Development
Church Street Station
PO Box 3888
New York, NY 10008-38881NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property
Photocopy the notarized affidavit before you mail it. If the original goes missing in transit, you can refile from the copy without booking another notary appointment. Certified mail or a tracked service gives you proof of delivery.
What Happens After You File
Once HPD processes the affidavit, the agency updates its records and notifies you that registration is no longer required.1NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property You can also check the status of your property through HPD’s Property Registration Online System (PROS).4NYC Housing Preservation and Development. NYC HPD Property Registration Online System
Unlike the standard Property Registration Statement, which must be refiled every year by September 1, the affidavit does not appear to require annual renewal. HPD’s guidance says only that once the form is processed, you’re notified that registration is no longer required. The exemption holds only as long as the underlying facts remain true.
When the Exemption Stops Applying
The affidavit is a sworn statement about your current situation. If that situation changes, the exemption can end and a registration obligation can kick in.
For an owner-occupied private dwelling, the trigger is that you and every qualifying family member stop living there. At that point the property becomes subject to registration, and the Housing Maintenance Code requires the owner to file a registration statement within ten days of the date when neither the owner nor any family member occupies the dwelling.5American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2097 – Registration; Time To File
When a property sells, the new owner starts from their own facts. A buyer who will live in the home should file a fresh affidavit; a buyer who will rent it out entirely must register with HPD. The Multiple Dwelling Law requires successors in ownership to file with the department within thirty days of taking title.6New York State Senate. New York Multiple Dwelling Law MDW 325 – Registry of Owner, Agent and Lessee
Why Filing Correctly Matters
The affidavit is how you stay out of HPD’s registration system legitimately. Owners who should register and don’t face civil penalties starting at $500 for smaller buildings and running higher for larger ones, plus a separate penalty for filing false information. An unregistered owner also loses the right to bring a nonpayment proceeding in housing court, and the court can stay rent collection while the property remains unregistered.7American Legal Publishing. New York City Administrative Code 27-2107 – Failure To Register; Penalties
The false-information penalty applies to the affidavit itself, because you sign it under penalty of perjury. Claiming owner-occupancy for a house you actually rent out in full exposes you to both the perjury risk and the registration penalties you were trying to avoid.1NYC Housing Preservation & Development. Register Your Property File the affidavit only when the facts genuinely support it, and update your filing when they don’t.